Fallout
by pro-prodigy
Summary: What would happen if Holmes and Watson's relationship was ever found out? A Holmesian Ballad of Reading Gaol. DARK


"Lestrade, how nice to see you." The 'r' is rolled in a familiar fashion and the general tone of the statement embodies the same amount of sincerity and sardonic humor in equal parts when it should have been more—_deserved_ to have a much more sarcastic edge to it.

Because what man can sit in an eight by eight cell with a drab uniform of grey upon a cot with a mattress so thin you might as well lay on the stone floor rather than the iron frame, possessing hands that are now calloused from the hard and pointless labor of breaking rocks all day, face marred with fresh bruises and somehow sound, act, and appear exactly the same as when he was one of the most famous and respected gentleman in all of London, if not Britain or the rest of the world for that matter?

What man could have everything of his previous life stripped away from him and yet remain the exact same person?

As Lestrade stepped into the cell, barred door shutting and being locked behind him with a loud clunk, Holmes cocked his head, eyes glittering with barely contained inquisitiveness, steady gaze raking over the Inspector from head to toe, the brain behind it no doubt assessing and deducing over a million minute details that added up to everything from how he had come to be here to why exactly he had arrived at the time he did.

What learned man or gentleman would not have gone mad already from forced isolation, scant meals, and the humiliating fall from grace that encompasses the grave consequences of imprisonment?

Apparently, that man was Sherlock Holmes.

"What happened to your arm?" Lestrade asked gruffly, avoiding, as he always did, the much larger and ghastly wrong that hung unspoken and unmentioned within the cramped cell. He indicated towards the hastily wrapped bandage along Holmes' forearm, where blood had seeped through the semi-clean fabric to reveal a glow of crimson.

"One of the prisoners thought to indulge in a change of routine by killing me. I objected," Holmes replied with a faint smile as if truly amused by the whole notion.

"You are getting along fine, then?" Lestrade asks, feeling desperately compelled to do so. "Have you had a chance to speak some more with Mr. Wilde?"

At this, Holmes visibly blanches. "Indeed I have, quite enough, in fact, to very accurately determine that Oscar Wilde is the absolute silliest man in all of England, America, and quite possibly France. It seems that everything that comes out of that man's mouth is a witty, though hardly insightful aphorism. However, I will own that his conversation is more philosophical than what is available from most of the other inmates, although that is not saying very much considering we are surrounded affirmed murders and other such criminals. Really though, if I were to desire a more stimulating tète-à-tète, I could simply talk to the fellow chained up beside me while working the treadmill. He killed seven first born children of prominent noble families and preserved their heads in plaster, you know. Not that he has shared any of this with me, of course. At least verbally."

It was Lestrade's turn to grimace, though Holmes hardly noticed as he went on. "Just because Mr. Wilde and I have been imprisoned for the same crime, doesn't automatically mean we will become fast friends. I hardly get along with people as it is. You should know that, Lestrade."

Indeed, Lestrade did know that. He had only hoped…

But no, if anyone could endure long periods of solitary confinement, it was Holmes because really, what punishment was there in isolation when the only person Holmes could stand to be with was not allowed to see him anyways?

And there, there was the crux of this entire affair.

Lestrade cleared his throat, seeking some way to approach the subject delicately. Of course, there was no delicate way to say it, so his silence stretched on past a mere pause.

As he was wont to do, past and present, Holmes availed himself to deduce past what Lestrade was intending to say.

"Ah, do you have another case for me to solve, Inspector? Another mystery so complex, so unusual that no other could possibly solve and therefore your superiors have sent you to me with not so much an order as a pronounced blindness to why exactly you are visiting Reading Gaol to check on a convicted invert and sodomite?"

"No," Lestrade answers tonelessly. "I've come because of Watson."

The unchanged façade of Sherlock Holmes cracked just a little, starting from the expression in his eyes to the way his entire body froze like no human being should be able to manage.

"He's dead."

The words came out like physical weights from his lips and with them Holmes' façade shattered to pieces.

"_No!_" It was a roar of irrational disbelief and raw and unadulterated pain and fury. "_You promised!_ You promised this wouldn't happen! If I agreed to allow myself to be convicted, incarcerated, and imprisoned, Watson was to be guaranteed both his freedom and his safety. That was the deal they gave me. I have upheld my end of the bargain. I'm here, rotting in gaol when half the prisoners that have been put here are owed to my efforts alone! I could have easily escaped all of this, but I did, partly from my own ideals and mostly because you said Watson would be safe. Tell me, Lestrade, in what have I erred that would lead to his death?!"

Someone—a guard, most likely—pounded on the door, asking if Lestrade needed assistance. He assured them that he did not before subjecting himself once more to Holmes' accusing stare.

"We did the best we could." Empty words, like unfulfilled promises. "He was reluctant to leave you. They were delayed in their passage to France and one of the officers assigned to watch him must have betrayed his whereabouts to a group of fundamentalists. Watson may have escaped your trials with his freedom intact, but in the eyes of some, it was not so with his innocence. For what it's worth, I don't think they actually intended to kill him."

Holmes snorted, a hateful sneer curling about his lips. Intent was worth very little after all, when the end result was something as irreversible as death.

"How?" That one word asked a hundred different questions.

"A cricket bat to the head. Crude, but effective and the two of you are not as young as you used to be." Lestrade included Holmes in the assessment because in the many years the two had worked together, they had always been one in the same, one half of the same entity. "He passed—painlessly," he added hastily, knowing that was at least one of the more important questions Holmes would have wanted answered, "while being treated at St. Bart's."

"Where is he buried?" This time, Holmes' tone had lost its anger and there was only the hint of the profound grief waiting to come.

"No church would take him. They would not allow Watson's body to be laid in hallowed ground." Lestrade's tone had changed as well. Before where numbness had pervaded, it was sad and shameful and hurt, his own anger shining through. "Gregson suggested cremation. We saved the ashes and…and put them inside an urn. Simple and understated, but nice…like he was."

"Where?" Holmes asked simply.

"Why?" Lestrade questioned, more out of habit than real suspicion. Well, he did suspect, but he hardly cared.

"I only asked where. You could at least give me that, Lestrade."

Lestrade swallowed. Yes, he could and as far as debts go, it wasn't even by far the least Lestrade could do for him, not for the extent of what Holmes had lost.

"On the mantelpiece at Baker Street, beside…beside your violin. Your brother maintains the place and Mrs. Hudson refuses to rent it to any other, as you already know."

Holmes nods. "Thank you."

"Holmes, I'm sorry."

"I know."

The apology didn't make it any better and Lestrade didn't know whether the lock picks, various tools, or small revolver would make it better either, but he left them all with Holmes anyways and couldn't help feeling that, that was that. The world at large doesn't play fair and it deserved whatever it got. Holmes would see to that.

~*~

The news was out the very next day. Sherlock Holmes, recently arrested and incarcerated to Reading Gaol for crimes of sodomy and homosexual relations, had escaped from prison. It was unprecedented and suddenly, people were reminded that Sherlock Holmes was also known for being the most brilliant detective to have ever lived. He escaped apparently to murder seven specifically chosen people. All of them died evidently from a hard blow to the skull by an unidentified heavy, blunt object, although two of the victims, one a police officer and the other an ex-cricket player also received bullet wounds to various parts of the body, assumed to have been dealt before they had been killed. All seven of the victims seemed to have been in contact with each other through a church group or club of some kind.

The most curious part about the whole affair was that after several tireless hours of searching, Holmes was discovered back in his cell at Reading, dead, apparently from an overdose of cocaine, wearing a mouse brown dressing gown, clutching a humble looking urn in one hand and a letter from his dear friend and colleague—or more, as had been speculated—in the other.

Most people assumed the ex-detective had set the thing up the way he had as a last snub to those who had unfairly incriminated him or to demonstrate to the world that he had only been contained in that foul place by choice. It was altogether a mystery to which many people had a plethora of answers to.

It was only the equally infamous Oscar Wilde who had gotten it right. A man, who only in the deepest confidence, Holmes himself had counted as a passable acquaintance.

Holmes had returned to his cell with Watson's remains because even though he had been wrongly imprisoned and unlawfully punished, they had been justly accused. For who in their right minds could not see that Sherlock Holmes and John Watson had loved each other with a love that could hardly be described, much less named?


End file.
